Referees need all the help they can get, and they could be about to be given a hand from artificial intelligence.
Over the past few years, FIFA has been trialing the use of limb-tracking offside technology, which uses AI along with a series of cameras around the stadium to follow players’ limbs and instantaneously creates virtual offside lines for referees. The technology has so far been used at the Club World Cup and FIFA Arab Cup, and FIFA expects it to be used at Qatar 2022.
Given all the issues with VAR, there could be some concerns about the use of AI in soccer.
But Dr. Patrick Lucey, chief scientist at sports data firm Stats Perform says that FIFA’s approach when it comes to limb-tracking is the right approach.
He says that rather than a fully-automated decision, the AI is used to give precise measurements and create the offside lines that before would have to be drawn manually. This removes human error, but humans are still very much in the loop.
The referee or assistant referee can look at the image created by the AI and know straight away if a player is offside, but the human official can also use their own judgement to decide whether that player is interfering with play or if there is any other reason why the goal should be given or not.
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